Image: Harrison, Sarah · Public domain
The House-Keeper's Pocket-Book
- Year
- 1733
- Era
- 18th century
- Origin
- England · Europe
- Language
- English
- Category
- English pre-1800
The House-Keeper's Pocket-Book, and Compleat Family Cook, first issued in 1733, is a domestic manual by Sarah Harrison combining receipts for cookery, preserving, pickling and home medicine with practical guidance on household management and marketing. Among the most enduring English cookery compilations of the eighteenth century, it ran through numerous expanded and revised editions into the 1770s, attesting to the rising market for affordable, comprehensive guides aimed at middling housewives.
Cooking from this book
Plum Cake
Signature dishFew dishes capture the spirit of Sarah Harrison's compendium quite like the great plum cake, a rich fruited confection that became a fixture of Georgian middle-class hospitality. Heavy with dried fruit, spice and sack, it was the centrepiece of christenings, Twelfth Night tables and Christmas gatherings. Its prominence in the many editions printed across nearly four decades reflects the book's role in shaping the practical repertoire of the English housekeeper, balancing economy with celebratory abundance.
An editorial note on a dish associated with this book, written for The Coquinist. It is not a reproduction of the book's recipe.
